


Resonance

by diwata



Series: Somewhere in Time [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Non-Massacre AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:00:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22472968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diwata/pseuds/diwata
Summary: “Does Sasuke-kun come here often?” Sakura jokes.“Only when the idiot wants to have a drinking contest,” Sasuke says.“So, often.”TA Sakura has a crush on one of her students. It doesn't bode well.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Sasuke
Series: Somewhere in Time [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1616926
Comments: 24
Kudos: 130





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> The first part of this modern!AU, featuring grad student TA Sakura. Enjoy!

Sakura is late to her first class as a Teaching Assistant and she tries her best not to feel mortified as she walks into the small seminar room to take a seat near the front, close to the chalkboard. She supposes, to the students in class, like the dark-haired man who sneers at her lateness now, she seems like an unprepared and unprofessional peer. Awkwardly, Sakura shrugs off her jacket and takes out her binder and a pen, along with a tall stack of materials that Shizune had asked her to prepare for today. Shizune pauses in her lecture and nods at her in acknowledgement. 

She only half-pays attention, scribbling relevant formulas and noting examples that Shizune gives to the class. For Sakura, there is only the matter of practicing, not the trouble of relearning the material through lecture. She glances at the print-out she had made of their first problem set, due two weeks from now. Chemical kinetics was easy enough, but the work is tedious, requiring many calculations that all seem to loop around each other, so she holds off. She begins to outline her work week with daily tasks instead. It’s a busy week ahead with deadlines for a research conference coming up, and her PI has her doing twice the amount of hours at the laboratory. Sakura considers whether the practice set would be better saved for the breaks between RT-PCR and autoclave.

“Sakura-san?” a familiar voice interrupts her train of thought. 

“Yes, Kato-sensei?” Sakura asks, looking up from her paper. She had only filled the first half of the page, despite it being a nearly two hour lecture. The class seems to physically shift towards her.

“Care to introduce yourself to the class?” the older woman asks patiently. 

Sakura vaguely feels like a first-year again. She stands up from her seat and turns to face her students. “Hello class, I’m Sakura-san,” she says, her lips curving gently. “I will be your TA for PChem II. I have office hours at seven in the morning on Mondays and Wednesdays at Room 1101 in the Chemistry department. I am also available to meet by appointment. You can find my e-mail and contact information in your syllabi.” Sakura taps on the stack of papers beside her. “Please take one on your way out, and do not hesitate to ask me any questions. Let’s do our best this semester!” She raises a fist in the air and giggles. Some giggle with her. Her seat neighbor, though, stares at her impassively. His expression towards her doesn’t change the class after, or the class after that. She recognizes him, of course -- it is not the first class she’s shared with Uchiha Sasuke, nor the second, nor the third. They had sat through much of their initial science sequence together, but he had never noticed her, or anyone else really. He seemed hyper-focused on something else, something out of anyone else’s reach.

“Sakura,” he calls her, one day after the classroom empties. He looks embarrassed and disgruntled.

She startles at the sound and pretends to not be offended at the lack of honorific. “Sasuke-san?” Not quite looking her in the eye, Sasuke asks to see her notes on the first example they had done in class today. Sakura realizes that he’d been late to class, uncharacteristically. She offers her notebook and walks him through the problem. She blushes as he mutters his thanks. As she watches his retreating back, she shakes her head. It wouldn’t do to crush on her student, Sakura frets; but she knows it is already too late.

* * *

Sakura is a morning person. She loves rising as the Sun rises, loves the peaceful quiet of dawn. Today, though, her morning is not so peaceful as her best friend accompanies her on her morning jog around campus. Half of the time is dedicated to Ino’s snide remarks about how ungodly early it is, the other half dedicated to defamatory stories about Ino’s current boyfriend. In summary, all of their time is spent enumerating Ino’s neverending list of grievances with humanity. Sakura puts a single earbud in, half-listening to the blonde’s complaints, half-listening to an audiobook on chronic stress disorders. “You asked,” Sakura whines when Ino announces she wants to quit, “we’re almost done, and you said you wanted _discipline._ ” 

Ino pushes through, even when Sakura makes them run up 11 staircases to get to the TA office. The hallway is dead silent as Sakura opens the door. “Why do you have such obscure office hours anyway, Forehead?” Ino demands, raising an accusatory eyebrow. “Do you think you’re fooling anybody?”

Sakura peeks over her shoulder as she begins her post-run stretches. “It’s the only time that fits into my schedule between class, the lab, and the hospital,” she says. She winks and gestures to the empty room. “I mean, I’m so dedicated to my beloved students.”

“I’d hate to be in one of your sections. Those poor, anxious pre-medical students,” Ino says, more bark than bite. She inspects her cuticles with minimal interest.

“Uh, so what happened exactly?” Sakura asks, carrying their bags to the corner of the room. She squats down to take out the containers she’d packed their breakfast in before walking back to Ino.

“Bento for breakfast?” she says, ignoring her question. Her pretty blue eyes seem glassy. “Oh, Sakura…” The blonde sighs as she sits on the wooden desk at the front of the room. She rests her palms against the table and leans back, the bento forgotten beside her. “I was talking to Sai for the first time in _three days_ and telling him about all the coursework I have to do for Endocrinology and then he goes and tells me that _he_ has a stomachache,” she sniffles. “Can you believe him? The _audacity_ , I swear -- I told him to stop, I’m the one complaining, not you!”

Sakura’s jaw drops marginally at her best friend’s dramatics. “You can’t be serious,” she says.

“You’re supposed to side with me,” Ino pouts. She snaps off the top of the bento box and begins picking away at the grapes Sakura bought at the farmer’s market on Sunday. Both of them startle at the sound of the door creaking open. “ _Oh shit_ ,” the blonde mouths to her friend. “Guess your plan backfired,” Ino says smugly. She scowls in response.

“Sakura-chan!” a bright voice echoes throughout the mostly empty room. Her blond student waves one arm frantically and uses the other to drag his friend along.

When the pair reaches the wooden desk, Ino winks at them. “I wish my students were this cute,” she says, eyes lingering on the dark-haired one.

Sakura sorts through her folders. “Stop flirting with _my students_ ,” she scolds, lightly hitting Ino’s shoulder with a procured stack of paper, “and also, you have a boyfriend, Ino-pig.” 

“I’ll excuse myself, then,” the blonde says, sticking her tongue out. “But I’m taking the bento with me, bye!” Ino tugs the end of Sakura’s long ponytail affectionately, collecting her bag and bento gracefully. The door makes an ugly sound behind her as she leaves.

Sakura turns to Naruto. “Naruto-san, I’m guessing you’re here to review your midterm exam?” Naruto nods with such enthusiasm, Sakura’s half-afraid his head might fall off. “Good, because this is your midterm. Now, I want you to start writing every question you got wrong on the board. We can work through each one together.”

Sasuke peers at the top of the exam paper after Sakura hands it off to Naruto. “How do you fail _Intro Stat,_ dead-last?” He seems genuinely astounded. Admittedly, Sakura is, too. She watches Naruto struggle through the second short answer, which her, the professor, and the other five Stats TAs had ranked one-star for difficulty.

“Naruto-san, I think you should stop by each week so I can check your homework,” Sakura suggests as tension begins to form in her temple. Not only is Naruto’s handwriting on the board barely legible, it is also incomprehensibly wrong.

He glances over his shoulder. “Huh?” Naruto’s usually expressive face is completely blank.

“... you do your homework, right?” Sakura says. She folds her arms and tilts her head to the side, willing her temper not to flare.

“Uhuh,” is her student’s lame response.

“Have it done by Wednesday,” she commands, retrieving Naruto’s midterm exam and putting it back in her folder. “We’ll go over it.”

“Yes, Sakura-chan!” Naruto says and gives her a fake salute. Sasuke rolls his eyes.

“Are the PChem grades ready?” Sasuke asks, and somehow his inquiry takes on the form of an unspoken demand.

“I haven’t entered them in, no,” she tells him, “but you did well! You scored 90.” Sakura smiles at him gently, recalling the way Sasuke’s shoulders hunch over his notebook in class. She watches his fist clench. “It was the highest score in the class,” she reassures him.

Dark eyes narrow at her. “I’d like to see my paper. Now.”

“It’s not on me,” she tells him, “but I remember where you lost points. Here, I’ll write the question on the board.” Sakura turns and scribbles characters on the board before handing off the green marker to Sasuke. His fingers brush her wrist for a millisecond as he reaches over and begins his work. When he’s finished, she circles the final step in his derivation, indicating the loss of 2.5 points that cost him a perfect score.

“Why did you take points off here?” Sasuke asks.

“How did you calculate zero from this step?” she pushes, ready to face off against her contentious student. “Write it out.”

“It’s zero,” he declares. He looks to his work, unable to explain why; the answer is zero, of course, like the sky is blue. There need not be explanations for such obvious things.

“You have to show every step of your derivation, and your last stage is not clear,” Sakura begins. She uncaps a red marker and draws an arrow from the last line of Sasuke’s answer. “Here, you can insert values from the table of integrals, but even so, there is a better way to do this.” She squats to write near the bottom of the whiteboard. “Take the integral here and multiply it by e to the power of _i_ times _m_ and theta. When you expand and then simplify the terms,” she says, leaning over the edge and drawing a lazy circle on the board, “you get zero. It’s more efficient.”

“I see,” is the grumbling word of acceptance from Sasuke’s mouth. She can’t explain why, but Sakura feels mildly victorious.

“Sakura-chan _schooled_ you, bastard!” Naruto teases, slapping Sasuke loudly on the back.

“Whatever,” Sasuke says, looking pointedly at the ground. A light pink dusts his cheeks.

Naruto comes on Wednesday, and the week after that; and the week after that. Each week, he brings Sasuke in tow. Sometimes, they work through problem sets. Mostly, they eat bento and listen to music. When Sakura teaches Naruto’s class, she waits for him sometimes so they can walk together, and when Sakura sits next to Sasuke in PChem, there is a new warmth between them. 

“You’re late today, Sakura,” Sasuke tells her one evening before class starts. She’s catching her breath from running up the stairs, and from chasing after the local bus twenty minutes prior.

“I’m on time, Sasuke-kun,” she argues, showing him her fitness watch. “It’s only 5:28!”

Sasuke moves his jacket from her seat and drums his fingers against its plastic. “You usually get here eight minutes ago,” he says with an air of finality. _I know you_ , Sasuke tells her in this roundabout way.

Sakura observes Sasuke's hair fall over his eyes with a quiet fondness. She moves her bags from the table so Sasuke can write more freely with his dominant hand. _I know you, too_ , she replies.

* * *

The pub is crowded when Sakura files in after her Bioinorganic Chemistry final, a swollen lump forming at the top of her head from when she walked into a vending machine in her post-exam daze. She feels the site tenderly, grateful that her hair covers most of it. “That bad, Forehead?” Ino chides before kissing the offensive lump. Sai ceremoniously greets her with an insult and a glass of umeboshi chuhai. “Of course you passed,” she says confidently before Sakura has the chance to vocalize her concern. 

“Nice lipstick,” Sakura remarks, wrapping her fingers around the base of the tall glass. Her gaze rests on the faded pink-red streaked across Sai’s face and neck. “Am I interrupting something?”

“Yes,” Sai says quickly, “Beautiful and I were about to engage in activities of a--”

Ino nudges her boyfriend with her hip. She gestures to a shot of something clear sitting on the bar counter. “Drink up,” Ino advises, “have fun _or else_.”

“Mildly threatening,” Sakura says, gratefully sipping on her cocktail. “Nice non-answer.” Ino winks at her before dragging Sai away in what Sakura knows is the general direction of the only single occupancy bathroom in the bar. “Activities,” she mutters to no one in particular. 

Sakura slouches in her seat, tipsily calculating minimum grades for her classes. If she gets a 50 on the final, she can pass with a C. This is okay, she tells herself. A C is passing, and she was bound to get a C someday, at some point in her life. One C wouldn’t harm her medical career, after all, if her references are nice and medical school admissions score is high enough. A C is a C. This is how Sasuke finds her, with her elbow on the bar counter, the thin fabric of her shirt riding up.

“Babysitting?” he asks, gesturing to her drink, which is more water than liquor now. The shot sits centimeters away, untouched.

Sakura’s eyes widen at his sudden appearance before she grumbles something in annoyance about the protonation of exogenous cofactors. “Does Sasuke-kun come here often?” she jokes.

He must feel the anxiety radiating off of her, because he dumps the shot into her drink. “Only when the idiot wants to have a drinking contest,” Sasuke says. He leans over her to order a whiskey neat.

“So, often,” Sakura replies. She grins at him. Sakura doesn’t have to look at him to know he smirks back in response. Instead, she watches the water on the counter, how it pools around the cups. He looks at her as she looks at the condensation. She knows he is looking at her by the way he looks away, turning his entire head away when she pivots to look at him. Like they’re in high school calculus instead of in their fourth year at university. Their moment of shared silence feels like surrender.

She takes a long sip of her watery chuhai, mixed with something that might be gin or might be vodka. She scrunches her nose. “Ino and Sai are having sex in the bathroom,” she tells him, an emboldened lack of propriety from the alcohol taking her.

“Interesting,” Sasuke swirls the whiskey in his glass, “Naruto and his girlfriend went to the bathroom some time ago, too.” 

Sakura almost spits out her drink. “What?” she sputters, repulsed by the image of virginal Hinata being desecrated in a public restroom. He raises his drink in her direction and they toast to each other. Sasuke chuckles at their shared joke and it feels like a secret. It lingers even after it stops. It feels like comfort, like relief. Like a deep sigh.

Sasuke approaches Sakura with the same languid ease at Hinata’s art gallery the following month. “Sakura,” he says. She cherishes the way his lips curve when forming the syllables of her name. A small flower floats on the surface of the drink he gives her.

“It’s beautiful, don’t you think?” Sakura remarks, admiring an impressionist rendition of the Sun setting over a forest.

“Yes,” Sasuke says as he watches her take a sip.

“Oh,” she says, smiling at the glass, “umeboshi. How did you know?” Sakura glances at Sasuke through her eyelashes.

He takes her wrist to lead her out of the way of a passerby and shrugs. “You notice things if you pay attention,” Sasuke tells her. He doesn’t move his hand, after that.


	2. Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Good things come to those who wait; for Sakura, waiting takes eight years.
> 
> “If you get me sick, I won’t forgive you.”  
> “Maybe you should have thought about that before you stuck your tongue in my mouth.”

Spring semester goes like this: meeting with Naruto and Sasuke on the sixth floor of the library for “group study,” even though none of them have class together anymore, Hinata and Sai organizing group therapeutic painting days, morning runs with Ino, and less frequently, meals with Sasuke in the break room between their labs. He’s typing away when she walks in, working on what she presumes to be his senior thesis. “Did you cure blindness, yet?” she jibes, shrugging off her white coat and hanging it up on one of the hooks. She hadn’t expected Sasuke to choose something so clinical for his focus project, much less cell replacement therapy for retinal disease. 

“Did you cure cancer?” Sasuke retorts, not looking up from his screen.

“Getting there,” Sakura chirps. She pulls out a chair for herself and smiles brightly. She had a rare morning where all of her experiments had gone to plan, and all of her results were the best she could have hoped for. Her application to present at the end of semester expo was approved, too; yet now, sitting beside Sasuke, she can’t shake the feeling of anticipation. “Did you see? There’s a shipment of Aurelia aurita in the lab across the hall. They’re really pretty,” Sakura says, aware that she’s babbling, “though I don’t know why they _needed_ live samples. Honestly, it’s a frivolous expense.” She opens her laptop to find the articles her PI had given her as suggested literature review reading. “If they want to study Nematogalectin-related metabolism, then they could have just ordered the protein itself.” 

Sasuke hums his agreement, looking exceedingly bored. 

“Anyway,” Sakura clears her throat, “Sasuke-kun is leaving soon.”

He pauses, bringing his gaze to Sakura’s fingers drumming gently against the wooden table. “It’s for my family,” Sasuke explains to her, though he doesn’t know why, “they want me to oversee some company experiments in Oto.”

“I know. I just,” she begins. Sakura nibbles at her bottom lip. “Well, I just had to say it, because I don’t know if…”

“What is it?” Sasuke asks. His stare cuts through her.

She feels her heart clench in her chest. “I like you,” Sakura confesses, the words spilling out of her mouth like a geyser. She doesn’t wait for Sasuke’s response. “I know that doesn’t change anything, but I figured I just had to say it, because who knows when or if we’ll get to see each other again.”

“Don’t be annoying,” he scolds her, not acknowledging her declaration, “you have my phone number.”

Sakura blinks away the tears forming in her eyes. “I know we were never close, but…” Still reeling from his rejection, she bows her head. She hears the sound of him closing his computer.

“Thank you,” he says, and she knows that he is sincere. Sasuke’s bangs cover his eyes before he turns away. She sinks back into her chair as he shuts the door behind him. Sakura lets her tears fall freely; she knows that she will not see him later, and she doesn’t.

Still, Sakura sends him a message before his flight to wish him a safe flight. _Thank you_ , Sasuke tells her again. She remembers the way his hair hung over his face that night, how he left like he was running away.

* * *

Sakura doesn’t expect life without Sasuke to be so empty, because life was almost unbearably busy before she had met him. But she doesn’t see Naruto as much anymore, because the last leg of his program is at the downtown campus, and Ino and Sai graduated and moved into an apartment of their own. Sakura doesn’t want to admit it, but she’s lonely; she treasures the times she runs into Naruto at graduate school events, and the nights they spend at Ichiraku together. Naruto is as bombastic as ever. He talks about meetings with politicians and district attorneys, about finishing up his degree and eventually running for office. She admires the scope of his dreams, his resilient energy. If he misses Sasuke, he doesn’t mention it, and nothing about his behavior betrays him.

Sometimes Hinata comes along and they talk about more trivial things, like entrance examinations and meal prep for the week. She appreciates these small conversations, preferring them to Ino’s hounding as of late.

Ino and Sai have been making steady progress in their relationship, so it comes as no surprise to Sakura when the blonde takes her aside after dinner to tell her that they had spoken about a timeline for engagement. “If I were to guess, he’s going to ask in a year and a half,” Ino says, dipping a cherry by its stem into their shared chocolate fondue.

“Please, please don’t get married in the middle of our boards,” Sakura replies, thinking about whether she could manage the stress of medical school and the stress of being _Ino_ ’s maid of honor.

“Only if you find a boyfriend by then,” the blonde tells her, only half-joking, “otherwise, you surrender maid of honor privileges.”

“You know I don’t have time for these things,” Sakura says, staring at the film the chocolate forms as it cools down. 

“I can set you up, if you’d like,” Ino offers, “with a nice guy. Morio-san. He actually asked about you, if you were interested. Do you remember, at Sai’s last gallery event?”

“I remember,” she replies after biting into a cherry, “no, thank you.” Sakura pretends she doesn’t bristle at the suggestion. If she didn’t meet Sasuke, Sakura thinks, her life might have ever been normal. She could have met someone at the hospital, or at the lab, and fallen in love with them easily. She’d have a date to her best friend’s wedding who would listen to her gripe about the unflattering color of the bridesmaids’ dresses, who might even pick her up from the hospital after evening clinic. If only. But Sakura doesn’t regret meeting Sasuke, not even a little; and she knows she’d be lying if she ever said so. So she doesn’t. Still, Sakura is different now: her hair is short, and she runs marathons.

The years pass and blend into each other before she hears his name again. Sakura is an MS-3 when she sees Sasuke on the news with a person named Orochimaru. The headline reads about an ethical violation in one of the Uchiha family’s company experiments, though it is unclear if the company heir was aware of the violations while they were happening. Her heart aches for him, like it always does. She considers calling his old number, but doesn’t. She sits alone, shouldering the weight of her unmoveable feelings.

* * *

Sakura gets an interesting patient from Kakashi-sensei, Konoha Hospital’s resident ophthalmic surgeon. She jumps at the opportunity when she hears the details of the case: a young man with rapidly declining eyesight has been diagnosed with a rare form of retinitis pigmentosa. When she hears, a jealous Ino elbows her and makes allegations of nepotism. “You’re not even in surgery, Ino-pig,” Sakura complains, nursing her now bruising ribcage, but smirks after; yes, it is favoritism, but Sakura isn’t bothered in the slightest. It’s not every day that a surgical intern gets to assist in a retinal transplant, after all.

She runs to the east wing of the hospital to prep her patient for surgery. Sakura looks at the chart Kakashi hands her before he steps out of the room. She reads the patient’s last name and freezes. “Hello, Uchiha-san,” she greets the older man, who turns to face her in his hospital bed. “I’m sure Kakashi-sensei has walked you through the procedure, but I’d like to introduce myself. Please call me Sakura-san. I’ll be assisting in today's procedure.” 

“Hello, Sakura-san. Please call me Itachi-san,” the man says. He seems utterly serene, unbothered by his complicated situation.

Uncomfortable, Sakura shifts her weight from her left leg to her right. “Do you have any questions?”

“I have one,” her patient says. His fingers grasp at his bedsheets. “Does Kakashi-san really wear that mask all the time? Or is that another consequence of my onset blindness?” The corners of his lips perk up, thoroughly amused by his own joke.

Sakura smiles at him. “He wears his mask all the time, he’s a bit of a clean freak,” she chides, “but Kakashi-sensei should really be more concerned about another type of contagious diseases.”

Itachi’s chuckle is warm and too familiar. “You’re very funny, aren’t you?” he says quietly. “I trust in you and Kakashi-san.” And then, “Thank you, Sakura-san.” She tilts her head in acknowledgement. Itachi reminds of Sasuke, almost, but not angry -- so maybe he doesn’t _really_ remind her of Sasuke, after all.

Following the successful transplant, Itachi stays at the hospital for two weeks so they can monitor the progression of his vision. Sakura makes it a habit to visit before her rounds, whenever they are. Itachi usually doesn’t mind. When she stays, Sakura describes things to him in vivid detail: the red skin of an apple, the spring sunlight that peeks through the blinds, the mural painted in the hospital’s cafeteria. 

On one visit, Sakura meets Itachi’s mother, who is beautiful and looks every bit like Sasuke. “Hm,” the older woman says when Sakura introduces herself, “I think I might have heard something about pink hair before.” Itachi and Mikoto share a secret smile.

Sakura stops by once more to see Itachi before he’s discharged. She scribbles something on her clipboard before strolling into the room, annoyed that she had been put on scut the past couple of days. “Sakura, huh?” Her pen bleeds through the paper.

“It’s been a while,” Sakura says, her mouth suddenly dry. “Sasuke-kun.”

There’s a glint in his eye that isn’t unfriendly. “Ah, it has,” he says, “you’re a surgeon now.”

Did she imagine the pride in his voice? Sakura occupies herself with straightening the collar of her white coat. “Surgical intern,” she corrects, “not a surgeon yet, anyway.” She hopes he doesn’t hear her voice shaking.

“Sasuke is here to pick me up,” Itachi interjects, dissipating the palpable tension despite looking thoroughly entertained by it all.

“Ah, okay. That’s good, you aren’t allowed to drive, after all,” Sakura informs him, slipping comfortably into her role as a doctor. “If your eyes irritate you at all, contact either me or Kakashi-san immediately.”

Itachi bows a little and hands her a small envelope. Sasuke watches the exchange suspiciously as he ushers his older brother out of the room. Itachi pokes his forehead and steps briskly through the door. “My thanks, Sakura-san,” Itachi says. The secret smile from earlier is back.

* * *

Sakura is grateful that the train is rather empty after her shift. She’s wearing a light t-shirt dress and sensible loafers, a safe option that balances her need to impress and her need to not look completely desperate. In all honesty, Sakura had no idea what to wear to dinner with her former patient’s family. She had even been inclined to decline the invitation that was in the envelope from Mikoto and Itachi, but Ino berated her. 

(“You are going. What the hell, even, Forehead?” the blonde said as she aggressively searched through her wardrobe for the perfect casual dinner outfit, “What even goes on in that big brain of yours?”)

As soon as Sakura gets to the house and toes off her shoes, Mikoto sweeps her into the kitchen to gossip about Naruto and Hinata, of all things. Sakura imagines she’d feel much more awkward if Mikoto weren’t such a welcoming and inviting force. Talking to her is easy, and they spend time in the kitchen giggling about an actress’s latest pregnancy. Sakura sets the table for the family despite Mikoto’s protests.

From the other room, she can hear parts of Itachi and Sasuke’s muffled conversation. “Mother likes her,” Itachi’s deep voice reverberates through the kitchen door.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sasuke’s baritone responds defensively.

Mikoto winks at her. “I do like you,” she says mischievously as Sakura neatly folds their napkins into triangles. Sakura blushes.

When it’s time for dinner, Fugaku, Mikoto, and Itachi all take seats across the table, leaving Sasuke and Sakura to sit together at the other side. If she weren’t so embarrassed, Sakura probably would have made a snarky remark about the strategic seat placement. Instead, she thanks Mikoto for her hospitality over dinner.

“So,” Mikoto says with a slow smile, “how do you two know each other?” Sasuke scowls.

“We went to Konoha University together,” Sakura supplies politely, feeling self-conscious with all of the family’s attention focused on her.

Animated, Mikoto passes one of the prepared side dishes to Sakura. “Did you also study Biomedical Engineering?”

“No, Biochemistry, actually,” she says, taking the bowl from the older woman, “I was Sasuke and Naruto’s TA. That’s how we all met.”

The sound of laughter from Mikoto’s stoic husband seems to startle both Sakura and Sasuke, who looks borderline bewildered. Mikoto grins as she reaches for Fugaku’s hand.

“Sasuke is truly his mother’s son,” he says mysteriously, linking their fingers together.

Out of the corner of Sakura’s eyes, she sees the tips of Sasuke’s earlobes redden. Mikoto is an expert storyteller; she paints a scene of Konoha University decades ago, of herself as a clueless second-year struggling through Organic Chemistry, and her handsome knight-in-shining armor TA who tutored her through every exam. How, when she had bought a thank you gift for him, he had declined and asked her to dinner instead. 

Fugaku seems to relax, chiming in whenever Mikoto misses a detail. “No,” he says when she tells them about her first date, “you didn’t bring a jacket. I remember, because you kept complaining about being cold, and I had to give you my sweater.” Something in Sakura’s heart warms as she watches the couple dispute the details of their courtship.

When Itachi mentions baby pictures, Sasuke glares at him and Sakura notices the time. “I should probably be going,” she says, moving to excuse herself.

“Wait,” Sasuke says, “I’ll drive you home.”

The ride home isn’t long, and is mostly filled with the sound of the radio that plays a band that Sakura listened to religiously in college. Sasuke’s car is exceptionally tidy, but Sakura hadn’t expected anything less.

When he reaches her apartment, he clears his throat. “Sakura, I’m sorry,” Sasuke apologizes.

Wide-eyed, Sakura asks, “Sorry? Sorry for what?” She thumbs the hem of her dress.

“For everything.” Sasuke runs a hand through his hair, looking sheepish. “Can we start over?”

Sakura leans over and tucks his hair behind his ears. “Yes,” she says, because that’s always the answer when it comes to Sasuke. His hand reaches up to tap her forehead. “Yes.”

* * *

Starting over looks like this: Sasuke picking Sakura up after her shifts, sometimes having meals delivered to the hospital so she remembers to eat, and sometimes the two of them lounging around Sakura’s apartment and watching medical dramas.

“Sakura,” Sasuke says, wrinkling his nose, “you know this is all grossly incorrect.”

Sakura shrugs. “So what?”

“So what,” he mumbles, exasperated, “so what, you’re a surgeon.”

“Surgical intern,” Sakura tells him for the hundredth time, “and I’m just a regular girl. We love terrible television, even if it’s medically inaccurate.”

Today, starting over looks like Sasuke carting her usual order from Ichiraku over to Sakura’s apartment after he gets out of the office because she’s sick. She sniffles her gratitude as she reheats the broth on the stove. “Don’t they say doctors make the worst patients?” he asks. Then, he kisses her deeply, pressing his lips to her chapped ones before sliding his tongue past hers. He can feel her heartbeat, her warm form pulsating against his chest.

Sakura pulls away to say something, but dissolves into a nasty coughing fit. “I’m not your patient,” she finally manages. She pouts before coughing again.

“If you get me sick, I won’t forgive you,” Sasuke quips, a lazy arm looping around Sakura’s waist.

She makes a face. “Maybe you should have thought about that before you stuck your tongue in my mouth,” Sakura bites back.

“Oh, did I do that?” Sasuke asks innocently, albeit with an amused tilt of his lips.

Sakura looks up at him, annoyed. “Yes,” she pulls on his tie, “now do it again.” And Sasuke, of course, obliges her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think is the first SasuSaku I've written where they actually kiss in-story. I hope you enjoyed this modern universe! Thank you.

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to note that they are all the same age in this universe, but in different programs; Sakura is a grad student because she is in a five year program, where Naruto and Sasuke are in their final (fourth) year of university completing their undergraduate degrees.


End file.
